


to fight magic with magic

by TheJadeSongbird



Category: RWBY, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Post V3C12 of RWBY, Post-Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:51:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6030393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJadeSongbird/pseuds/TheJadeSongbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For someone who married a woman with the last name Rose, he’s always been wary of flowers—especially golden ones. Summer called him silly for it. Taiyang simply pushed down the eternal cackling from the back of his mind and let it be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to fight magic with magic

For someone who married a woman with the last name Rose, he’s always been wary of flowers—especially golden ones. Summer called him silly for it. Taiyang pushed down the eternal cackling from the back of his mind and let it be.

Some days, the echoes were harder to push back—especially when his mood was low and the nightmares kept him from sleeping.  
  
Thankfully, on the worst days, the echoes had tact enough to keep silent—if only so he wouldn’t take drastic measures to silence them.  
  
This….was one of the worst days though—if not the worst. No sleep combined with the newly discovered disappearance of his youngest?  
  
Taiyang had no illusions that Cinder Fall would tear Ruby apart. It was –to her—Kill Or Be Killed.  
  
He hated that life lesson—no matter how true it was. But Ruby was gone, and Qrow had done nothing but enable her.  
  
And once again, Taiyang was left behind—this time to care for his eldest who’d all but given up the will to live herself.

 _Yang…. Ruby….._  
  
He was going to lose them. He couldn’t lose them. He _refused._  


While it wasn’t the first time that he’d visited Summer’s grave—far from it—it was the first time in a very long time he’d sat there, closing his eyes and letting himself hear the echoes.

_“F i n a l l y.”_

The image of blooming golden flowers crossed his mindscape—red eyes watched him sit down beside them as roots twist and turn around them. _“We’d thought you’d forgotten us.”_  
  
“You’re hard to forget.” He smiled, sadly. A golden flower was picked from by his right side and twirled between his fingertips before he offers it to the child. Chara took it, tucking it behind their ear. “You’re always there.”  
  
A root rose from behind him, twisting around his left shoulder and intertwining with his arm.  
  
_“Always.”_  Taiyang could feel the flower petals brush his hair—the breath on his cheek. He looked up into the twisted grin and tilted his head. _“We’re always here. Always listening. Always waiting_.”  The determination flower chuckled under its breath. _“And you’re angry. Outraged, even…murderous?”_  
  
“Do you blame me?” The flowerbed around them rustled.  
  
_“They’re always leaving.”_ The child across from Taiyang murmured _. “Raven. Summer. Qrow. Now Ruby. Who next?”_  
  
_“But he doesn’t want there to be a next.”_ Flowey’s voice crackled and echoed when they laughed. _“After all, you are here.”_  
  
_“Why are you here, Tai?”_ Chara looked up at him _.  “You haven’t talked to us in years.”_  They looked rather frustrated with that, causing a pang of guilt to settle in his stomach _. “Not that I blame you. But still.”_  
  
“Are you real?” The cackling from the determination flower grew from around them.  
  
_“Are we real—he asks if we’re real?”_ More laughter—twisted and snarling.   _“The Underground went empty. The Angel descended, took on the God and the first of the Fallen Children, freeing the monsters of their imprisonment. He became caretaker of the remnants of the God and Child’s Souls—our souls.”_  
  
_“We’re as real as you, Frisk—Taiyang—whatever name you go by.”_  
  
“Beacon was just the beginning. Vale was just the beginning.“ He said. _“Fall is a madwoman and my children will be casualties if I don’t stop her.”_  
  
_“If you stop her?”_ Taunting from by his ear. _“Please, what can you do? You’re a washed up huntsman—an injured lion.”_  
  
“ _An injured lion still wants to roar.”_ Chara tilted their head. _“You want our help? To fight magic with magic?”_ Taiyang’s expression said it all. _“Don’t you know that we haven’t changed. Do you want to risk it?”_  
  
“Qrow once told me I was too faint-hearted, too kind for battle.”  
  
_“He hasn’t met us yet.”_ The twisting vines around his arm disappeared, and Flowey moved to hover by Chara. _“What do we get out of this?”_  
  
“You get to play, don’t you?”  
  
Flowey grinned, and Chara’s eyes sparked with the faintest glow of excitement.  
  
**_“We accept.”_** A tiny hand intertwined with vines and blooming buttercups reached out to him.  
  
Taiyang took it, and in the real world—the trees around him shook and roots split from their earthy confines.  
  
_Game on, Cinder Fall. Game on._


End file.
